In my head, there is a room. In this room, there is nothing but a single chair and a door—always locked—and no matter what I do, I can never reach the handle. This room has been with me since I was a child. A place I created to mourn and make sense of young traumas. A childhood trap.

As a creator and even in my life, vulnerability has been something I’ve found myself struggling with lately. I want so desperately to give of myself freely and unabashedly to the world, but putting my guard down to do that can sometimes be overwhelming, if not terrifying. To me, it means opening up my whole self for judgement, for ridicule, for someone else to view me the way I often times have viewed myself—which hasn’t always been the most flattering. Sometimes, I even fear praise. Your added attention just reminds me that I am naked and exposed. Luckily, I am now journeying back to myself. I am learning that vulnerability is not about opening ourselves up to judgement, but to possibility.

Vulnerability invites courage into our lives. It requires surrender and reinforces our faith. It’s found in the moments between closed eyes and open hearts. It lives in the contemplation of ideas that challenge our identities, who we think we are, and what we believe we represent. Vulnerability means stepping outside of your comfortable mental walls, exposed somehow, to the great unknown.

Many of us are awakening to the binds that have been placed on femininity. There isn’t one right way to be feminine nor does being feminine look a certain way. Letting go of that can help us see the shame and rather than fight against it, learn to heal it.

For me, Feminism is a necessary tool not to liberate women, but to allow them to be what they are and develop themselves without conforming to externally imposed limitations that hold them from progressing and reaching true self-realization.

Think about a world that exists only in your wildest dreams, where melanin is given its rightful respect and every part of the diaspora isn’t quite so...diasporic. Imagine a future where the disconnect between the identities of Africans and Black Americans and Black Latinxs isn’t as pertinent, a future in which we lift each other up as a collective and further our identities as a whole.

What does creativity feel like in your pursuit of freedom? I challenge you to not only think critically about your freedom but to act on it. Freedom is a journey, undoubtedly so, but you cannot lose your shackles if you do not begin to search for the keys.

In Africa we have a proverb that says, “Don’t look where you fell, but where you slipped.” In other words, the solution isn’t in the outcome, it's in the cause. Look for the cause of the problem instead of focusing on the effect. That's where you can start learning how to fix things.

To be childlike is to be curious and eager, to be adventurous and full of wonder. Children are creative, playful and open to experience. I’ve had to be that way with myself, and to get back to having, and owning, that freedom.

We exist in a state of perpetual weary because we are trying to free a country before settling into the land that is our body, our voice, our beliefs, our desires, our truest selves… before being free ourselves.